The Playground
Deana was so excited to have a house full of people for once that the moment the meal was over she started pestering everyone to go outside—and so Luke and Daiton found themselves dragged off to the neighborhood playground.
"I'm going to grab some coffee. You want anything?"
Kirke asked Daiton.
They'd been treated to a meal, so the least she could do was buy the coffee.
"Anything's fine."
Daiton waved it off. He drank whatever you put in front of him, and right now even deciding what he felt like was too much effort.
"Americano all around, then?"
"Sure. Doesn't matter."
Once Kirke and Sorbi had taken the order and left, Daiton settled onto a bench and watched Luke playing with Deana, thinking.
Deana really follows Luke around, doesn't she.
Deana had never been particularly shy with strangers, but he'd never seen her attach herself to someone quite this warmly.
The way she looked at Luke was almost like admiration. Did she want to grow up to be like Luke someday?
Luke was mature and calm—if Deana started modeling herself after Luke, Daiton would only be grateful. Coming home from work and having to play with her was exhausting enough; if she could sit quietly with a book once in a while, life would be so much easier.
Just look at her now—so composed, so—
"Daiton. Is this place what they call a playground?"
Luke looked up at him, eyes faintly bright with curiosity.
"…Yeah."
Scratch that. Luke was just genuinely weird.
Ten years old and didn't know what a playground was?
Like some kid who'd been locked away somewhere and never learned a thing about the world—
Ah.
The thought landed, and Daiton scratched the back of his neck.
Now I get why Yerna is so obsessed with Luke.
Anyone else might have managed it—but Yerna? There was no way she could have just left Luke alone.
A complicated feeling settled over him. In that moment Deana grabbed Luke's arm and called out.
"Luke-unnie, hurry up! Let's go play!"
"All right, all right."
Luke smiled and let himself be led along.
Playing with her like this every so often wasn't so bad.
Still—were all of these really play equipment for children?
A brightly painted slide, swings, a seesaw… The modern playground gear looked surprisingly sturdy and safe.
"I'm going on the slide!"
Deana scrambled up the steps in pure delight and waved.
"Luke-unnie, over here! Over here!"
Luke followed at a more measured pace, scolding gently.
"If you run like that you'll trip and hurt yourself. Be careful."
"Okay!"
She answered well enough—but had she actually listened?
Even if it went in one ear and straight out the other, Luke still had to say it. He had seen far too many children tumble, scrape themselves raw, and burst into tears. And unlike back then, he no longer had magic that could knit a body back together in an instant. All the more reason to be careful.
The moment Luke reached the top, Deana shot down the slide as if daring him to catch her. Whatever joy she found in it, she looked thoroughly delighted.
Luke, for his part, wondered whether sliding down himself might be a little undignified.
"Unnie, why aren't you going? It's fun…"
Deana was already looking up from the bottom with a crestfallen face. In the end Luke folded himself into the chute.
Whoosh—thump.
A brief slide, then his feet hit the ground.
"…"
It might have been a little fun. Mostly, though, the embarrassment won out.
Luke scrubbed his face once, stood, and dusted off his backside—and the shame along with it.
"Again!"
One ride was nowhere near enough for Deana. She went down several more times while Luke simply stood beside the slide and clapped, telling her how well she was doing.
But riding alone wasn't fun enough. Cheeks puffed out in a full pout, Deana seized Luke's hand and pulled—clearly meaning they were moving on to something else.
Before he had been an archmage, Luke had been a noble.
Not one of those paper aristocrats who held the title in name only—a genuine noble, thoroughly steeped in every refinement the class demanded.
And so Luke had experience with horsemanship. More than experience: he had been an excellent rider.
Before the war, they had often traveled on horseback simply to avoid wasting mana. Luke, Renier, and Kale had all been skilled enough to eat and sleep in the saddle without trouble.
The reason that history mattered now was that the piece of playground equipment Luke currently sat astride rather resembled a horse.
It was a modern spring-mounted wooden horse—connected to the ground by springs. (Luke now knew what springs were. He considered them a rather fine invention, though he had never imagined they would be used like this.)
No matter how he rocked, the thing only bounced elastically. There was not the faintest sensation of actually riding a horse.
Well. It was a wooden horse.
The thought that he was sitting on a toy horse only made the embarrassment worse. This was not an object Luke could ride with any remaining dignity.
Then Deana shouted.
"Ready—go!"
Luke watched her thrash her body back and forth with ferocious energy. She looked like she was having the time of her life.
Luke, however, was well past the age of finding "fun" in such things. He mostly just wanted to get off.
If I were actually a child, I might have enjoyed this…
Luke had not sat on a model horse once since turning ten—because from the age of ten he had ridden real ones. Even before that, he had not climbed onto a wooden horse after the age of five.
—Hiiiiiin…!
A sudden horse's whinny made him flinch and turn toward the sound. There, a blue spirit was circling him with obvious glee, manufacturing the noise of a horse.
"And what, exactly, do you think you're doing…"
Was Pai trying to kill him with sheer humiliation? Luke seriously considered the possibility.
In the end he abandoned the spring horse and stood up.
"D-Deana. I lose. I simply cannot match your speed."
She stopped rocking and looked up at him, disappointed.
"Unnie, you didn't even ride."
Luke immediately averted his eyes and changed the subject.
"…Haha. How about the swings? I'll push you from behind."
"Oh—the swings! I wanna go on the swings!"
"Yes, yes."
Luke felt as though he had just been granted a stay of execution.
—…
Pai, on the other hand, let out a dejected little horse-sound and plopped down on top of Luke's head.
Had she really been that disappointed?
Luke spoke quietly.
"If it were a real horse, I would ride it for you. Cheer up, Pai."
—…!
Apparently that restored her spirits. She lifted off his head, trembling with delight, and scattered fragments of mana. To Luke's Mana Sight, they looked almost like pollen.
Still—this was an age without even horses for carriages. Would he ever see a real horse again?
After pushing the swing for a long while, Luke was resting beside Daiton.
The child had no fear at all—she kept chanting harder, harder until Luke briefly entertained the shallow thought of whether he might need to cast Enhance Body. Of course he did no such thing; it would have been dangerous.
Luke and Deana had ridden any number of other pieces of equipment as well. Children's peculiar, almost unnatural stamina when they were having fun meant Luke had been held captive for quite a stretch.
The only reason he was catching his breath now was that Deana's neighborhood friends had shown up at the playground.
He didn't mind bright children—but was Deana a little too bright? There was something about her that felt like she was starving for affection.
If those other kids hadn't arrived, he might have had to play with her until he collapsed.
"You've had a hard life, Daiton."
"You too… Thanks for playing with her."
Sorbi appeared out of nowhere and held out a drink to Luke. He took the cup on reflex and realized from the chill of its surface that something quite cold was inside.
"What is this?"
"Mint-choco frappé! You said you like mint chocolate, right?"
Sorbi grinned and met his eyes. Luke smiled faintly back.
"That's very kind of you, Sorbi. I'll enjoy it."
He put his mouth to the straw and drew a long sip. The scent of mint hit at once, sharp enough to tingle across his tongue.
Mm. Not bad at all. Though it won't do much for actual thirst.
It was rather like ice cream—so sweet and sticky that drinking it almost seemed to create thirst instead of quenching it. The same problem ice cream had.
"I still don't get why anyone likes that stuff…"
Kirke shook her head, faintly appalled.
Daiton pushed back.
"Luke says it's good. Maybe mint choco actually is good?"
"No—even if I'd bought it myself, mint choco is a hard pass. I'll respect the preference, but don't try to convert me."
Sorbi drew a firm line. She'd only bought it because Luke said he liked it; otherwise she wouldn't have touched the stuff.
Luke ignored the bickering over whether mint chocolate was delicious or not and kept drinking his "frappé." That was when Deana stomped over with a thoroughly sulky face.
"What's the matter, Deana? Why the scrunched-up face?"
"Unnie, come here for a sec."
Led by Deana's hand into the cluster of children, Luke realized something uneasy in the way the smaller ones were looking at him.
The cause revealed itself at once.
"Luke-unnie, you tell them. Unnie's a spirit girl."
"Deana? What on earth are you talking about…?"
"They keep saying I'm lying…! But unnie really is a spirit girl!"
"Deana, didn't I tell you that was a secret?"
"Ah—right!"
The way she clapped both hands over her mouth was adorable, but…
Luke sighed.
Well. I never once expected a little child to keep a secret.
While he was thinking that, a slightly vacant-looking beastkin child among them spoke up.
"Noona's that spirit girl?"
"That's…"
Would it be all right to show them an illusion of a spirit here? If he simply denied it, nothing much would come of it.
Then a somewhat chubby child cut in.
"Don't lie, Deana. You always make stuff up."
"I am not! She really is a spirit girl!"
Whatever resolve Deana had just had about keeping secrets had already evaporated; she flared up at once.
Was she truly Daiton's little sister?
"Unnie, can't you show them just one more time? Just once…"
Deana gazed up at him with big, pleading eyes. Luke pressed his temple once and thought.
It probably won't cause any real trouble…
This world was not a puppet show. In this age there were no enemies a little girl needed a spirit's power to defeat. Simply showing a spirit for a moment wouldn't start anything serious.
These children only wanted to see the kind of spirit that appeared in a children's program.
"Very well. I shall show you—just once."
Luke nodded, and Deana's eyes lit up as if she'd been handed a present.
"Really!?"
"It's obviously a lie, though."
"Yeah…"
The other children didn't seem particularly interested. They clearly assumed it was false.
Well. I can't very well let them make Deana out to be a liar.
Luke spun a circle at once, flicked his fingers, and shaped an illusion of a spirit.
For a moment the whole group fell silent, staring as if their souls had left their bodies—then:
"Whoa, it's real!"
"It wasn't a lie?"
"Can we touch it??"
Hmm. The reaction was hotter than he'd expected. Was that how popular Spirit Girl Maruru was?
Spirits certainly existed commonly enough in the world. There was the World Tree spirit that had offered even its own body to fill his circles—and right behind him now, a spirit happily soaking up the children's attention aimed at his illusion.
Of course spirits were real. And being real, there was no particular need to hide them.
Of course, what these children were looking at was only an illusion in the shape of a spirit—not a true one.
"Don't touch. Spirits dislike it."
Because it's an illusion, so you can't touch it anyway.
Even a real spirit wasn't exactly something you could "touch" in the ordinary sense—though a mana barrier would at least give a sensation of contact…
—…!
Pai shook her head furiously in front of Luke, as if to say she did not dislike being touched in the slightest. She even layered her own body over the illusion and started fussing to be petted. Luke exhaled a long sigh.
"…Apparently she says you may touch her."
"Yay!"
The children immediately reached for Pai.
"It feels weird."
"It's cold—no, warm. Kind of like pudding."
"Kinda like that patch stuff Mom puts on."
"I dunno!"
A spirit's body was pure mana itself; since each person sensed and understood mana differently, the sensation differed too.
Luke decided the spectacle was starting to draw too many eyes. He dismissed the illusion and withdrew his hand.
"There. Satisfied?"
The children all chorused yes, beaming.
A little later, the chubby child bowed apologetically to Deana.
"You really were a spirit girl… Sorry, Deana. For teasing you and saying you were lying."
"As long as you get it!"
Luke was smiling warmly at how readily the child owned the mistake when a little girl suddenly tapped his arm.
"What is it?"
"Unnie, then can you transform too?"
"That…"
If he wanted to, it probably wouldn't be impossible. Wrap himself in light, change clothes—that would about cover it.
But why on earth would he do such a thing?
He had no spare outfit, and changing clothes out in the open the way they did in the show was, frankly, something beyond mere embarrassment.
"I can't do that here, child. Be content with having seen a spirit."
He understood the need to put on proper attire before a fight—but there was no need to change outdoors. And the clothes they changed into didn't even look like combat gear…
Perhaps that Maruru child is rather more shameless than I gave her credit for…
The thought made his face feel oddly warm. Clearly just this body's excellent blood circulation at work.